Wallet: The ultimate guide

How do you pay for your coffee, board your plane, or get into your movie with your iPhone? By using Apple's built-in digital Wallet!

Wallet— formerly known as Passbook — is Apple's answer to digitizing all the cards that are overflowing your billfold, purse, or pockets — including Apple Pay. Wallet stores virtual versions of all your passes, tickets, coupons, credit cards, debit cards, and loyalty cards so you can easily access them at any time. Wallet is also location aware and always online, so Wallet can even pull up and update the balance on your coffee shop card or gate number on your boarding pass, so you always know how much you have or where you need to be.

How to add cards to Wallet

Wallet is supported by everything from coffee shops to airlines, party services to movie theaters, conferences to loyalty cards. All you have to do is fill it up. While not all apps make adding Wallet passes obvious, there are some places you can usually find them.

Launch an app that supports Wallet cards.

Apps are all different but navigate to the Payment or Add Card tab.

Tap on the Add to Wallet option (older apps may say Passbook instead of Wallet).

Tap Add in the upper right hand corner.

Remember that the process of adding cards to your Wallet can vary greatly from app to app, depending on how the company or developer decides to use them. From plane boarding passes to loyalty cards to paying for your coffee or lunch, lots of businesses support them. You may just have to do a little digging inside your favorite apps.

How to refresh cards in Wallet

While many cards in Wallet refresh things like balances or gate numbers automatically, sometimes those features aren't implemented, network connections are lost, or other problems occur. Luckily, you can always manually update your passes to make sure you have the latest and most accurate information.

Launch the Wallet app on your iPhone.

Tap on the card you'd like to refresh.

Tap on the info button in the bottom right hand corner.

Tap and hold your finger anywhere near the top of the card's tab.

Pull down from the top of the card and release in order to refresh.

How to reorder cards in Wallet

Just like a real world, you can quickly and easily shuffle the cards in your Wallet. Put the coffee shop card right up front, slide the tickets for the big game all the way to the back, get those conference party tickets into perfect chronological order — you can change the order to whatever you want, whenever you want.

Launch the Wallet on your iPhone.

Press and hold the card you'd like to move.

Drag it to the position you want it in and release it.

How to share cards from Wallet

Launch the Wallet app on your iPhone.

Tap the card you'd like to share.

Tap on the info button in the right corner of the pass.

Tap on the Share Pass button.

Tap on the method you'd like to use to share the pass. These include email, message, AirDrop, and any other third party apps or extensions that support Wallet.

How to remove cards from Wallet

Once you've finished using a pass — the movie is over, your flight has landed, or you've switched coffee shop chains — you'll no longer need them cluttering up Passbook. Luckily, once you know how, passes are really easy to delete.

Launch the Wallet app on your iPhone.

Tap on the card you'd like to delete.

Tap on the info button in the bottom right hand corner to flip the card over.

Tap Remove Pass.

Tap Remove.

How to turn on/off automatic updates in Wallet

By default, Wallet automatically updates all of its cards and passes at regular intervals or when it's specifically notified of a change. That can be your balance, your gate, or anything at all. If you don't want Passbook to update on its own, however, you can shut it off and make sure the only changes that are made are the changes you manually update.

Launch the Wallet app on your iPhone.

Tap on the card you'd like to turn automatic updates on or off for.

Tap the info button in the lower right hand corner of the card.

Adjust the automatic updates slider by moving it right to turn on updates, and left to turn off.

How to turn off/on lock screen access for Wallet

While Wallet''s ability to pop relevant passes up on your Lock screen is convenient, all convenience still comes at the price of privacy and security. In other words, anything you can access with a swipe, anyone else who gets a hold of your iPhone can access as well, without needing to enter your passcode or use Touch ID. For most people, it won't ever be a problem. For those who are incredibly privacy and security conscious, however, Apple makes it easy to disable Wallet on the Lock screen.

Tap on the Settings App from the Home screen of your iPhone.

Tap on Wallet & Apple Pay.

Move the Double-Click Home Button slider to the left to disable access to all cards in Wallet from your Lock screen.

How to turn off/on location access for Wallet

Passbook knows when to show your coffee shop card or boarding pass on the Lock screen because it uses the GPS and other location services on your iPhone to know when you're near the coffee shop or airport. While your location is never shared with anyone else, you may still be uncomfortable with the idea. If you are, and you're willing to give up the convenience that comes with Passbook knowing when to give you easy access to your passes, you can turn location off.